Media addicted to “melt”, when it it should be “crack”?

The picture of the Wilkins Ice Shelf cracks is itself fine, and the news media loves it so much that they recycle it every year. The problem is with the interpretation which some people continue to insist on that the ice is “melting.”

A picture is worth a thousand words, so below are a few showing what melting ice actually looks like:

The image was copied from the ships computer (where Byrd had downloaded the camera flash memory stick to) by another member of the shipboard research crew ( Dan Crosbie) and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by many as an example of the fate that awaits the polar bears – including Al Gore, who used the picture as huge projected backdrop in one of his highly lucrative lectures, a conference of human resource executives on March 22, 2007 in Toronto, Canada.

Gore said:

“Their habitat is melting,” “beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.”

Audience: [gasp!]

Yes, it melts every summer.

Melting ice is dark, corroded, irregular, wet, thin and rough. Yet the Wilkins picture shows none of those features. The cracked Wilkins Ice is bright, smooth, dry – and has sharp, clean fractures at 90 degree angles to the surface. Nothing in that picture even remotely hints at melting. The interstitial sea water is very cold and is quickly refreezing in the cracks.

NSIDC’s Ted Scambos has proposed a mechanism for ice sheet breakup, where pooling water on the surface seeps down into small cracks in the ice and causes fracturing as the water refreezes.

However, there is no evidence of pooling water on the surface in the Wilkins image above, and it does not sound plausible as a mechanism for making a clean crack 200 metres thick and miles long.

A generally pro-AGW 2005 paper published by the University of Chicago may shed some light on what is really going on with the ice shelves. Ice shelf retreat is cyclical, normal, has little long-term effect, and may happen faster in the winter. What does that have to do with CO2?

Historical records show that large tabular bergs are produced sporadically with typical recurrence times of 50-100 years [Budd, 1966] and despite their large size, appear to have little effect on the long-term ice flow. Unlike the disintegration of parts of the peninsular ice shelves, the production of tabular bergs is part of a normal cycle in which the ice shelf advances beyond its confining embaymentor pinning points and subsequently retreats by calving.….Despite this prominent role we know very little about the mechanisms and controlling forces that lead to rift initiation and propagation. This ignorance hinders any attempt to assess accurately how ice sheets will respond to future climate change.…..However, two of the three bursts did occur within three days of periods of sustained winds (shaded part of Figure 2c), suggesting there might be some relationship with prolonged winds. If this were the case, we would expect the rift would propagate faster in the winter when the winds are strongest

Note the authors’ usage of “Unlike the disintegration of parts of the peninsular ice shelves” in the first paragraph. Why does ice on the Antarctic Peninsula behave differently? Perhaps it has become an AGW sacred cow. It is the only place on the continent behaving according to expectations.

Note that the positive ice anomaly is greater now than it was any time prior to 1995. However, 1n 1980 the anomaly was nearly 3,000,000 km2 squared lower – i.e. there was enough ice loss in 1980 (relative to the present) to contain about one third of Europe. Sea ice and cold go hand in hand. Perhaps we need a new term for Antarctic cooling deniers? Something like “Ozone Holers.”

56 thoughts on “Media addicted to “melt”, when it it should be “crack”?”

How about “CARBONISTAS,” a term I’ve seen a few times to describe the moral crusaders out to ensure our compliance with their standards of behavior. But watch out, it’s also a new CD release, featuring such artistic titles as “Murder,” “It’s All F#@%&d Up In Dixie,” and “America Is a Prison.” Skeptics could be sued for plagiarism. I kid you not.

How can a reasonable person believe you deniers when the evidence presented by Albert Gore Jr., Ph.D. (Honorary), eminent Nobel Laureate and climate expert, is so overwhelming that we have only 3.5 years left before its too late to save the planet from fiery, flooded destruction.

The undoctored photo of the polar bears may at first look the same but the origional had one of the polar bears milling about like it wasn’t asking for help or was scared of being on that piece of ice, also some nice information of the difference between cracked ice and melting ice, speaking of melting ice the Arctic ice extent is continuing to hold at a position just above 2003.

The disintegration of some ice shelves on the Antarctic Penisula can’t be explained by rising air temperatures and melting caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. . All of data from the neighbouring weather stations shows no significant warming in summer months between 1950 and 2009. From about 1970 to 1990 there was a very intense warming in the area, but this trend was limited to average winter temperatures. In the last 20 years, the Antarctic penisula is experiencing a warmer period compared to the mid-century average, but shows no warming but a slight cooling trend instead.

The short version is: “There are some people you can’t help.” The long version: “There are some people you can’t help; they are beyond help, they don’t want YOUR help, they are too stupid to realize they need help, they are too incompetent to utilize the help.” — Dave the Engineer circa 1980

Shorter version:
“…don’t get stuck on stupid” — General Honore, July 2006

Possibly OT. We can blame it on Swine Flu, or is AGW the cause of Swine Flu, or are swine the the cause of excess methane. (One can possibly concoct a creible correlation between the world’s swine population and global warming) Perhaps we should be marketing Swine Credits?

I can’t remember where I read it, but I read an alarmist article that stated that although the Antarctic Ice is increasing it doesn’t mean that the continent is cooling.
It said something about, increasing warmth which increases the evaporation rate which leads to increasing snowfall, which leads to increasing ice on the continental interior.
Sounds a little too simplified and it contradicts the AGW theory that ice will melt regardless of evaporation,,, but for interest’s sake is there any data showing precipitation trends on the continent?

And if we don’t hurry up and fix the planet that Albert Gore Jr., Ph.D. (Honorary), an eminent Nobel Laureate and climate expert emphatically waxes into Hurricane Level 5 over, Albert Gore Jr., Ph.D. (Honorary), an eminent Nobel Laureate and climate expert will reboot the models back into Ice Age mode.
Of course, he knew it all along.
Albert Gore Jr., Ph.D. (Honorary), an eminent Nobel Laureate and climate expert knows everything, and was merely trying to save the planet by any means he could.

Roll out the fossilied charcoal briquettes, and throw another model on the barbie.

If sea ice breaks off and travels to warmer waters, it melts, and it lowers the temp of the warmer waters. Spreads the icy love, yes it does.
Have you remembered to burn your mandatory lump of coal to save the planet from Ice Age Doom today? We must all contribute our share of warmth.

Alex (10:37:22) : “I…read an alarmist article that stated that although the Antarctic Ice is increasing it doesn’t mean that the continent is cooling. It said something about, increasing warmth which increases the evaporation rate which leads to increasing snowfall, which leads to increasing ice on the continental interior…”

Just more Warmist pseudoscience. Evaporation only involves a certain amount of heat, roughly 1000 BTUs per pound of water. That same 1000 BTUs must come back out to form rain, but then you have to get out another 150 BTUs to freeze the rain into snow. The supposed increase in warmth might evaporate more water if it were real, but how do they account for the ice? Well, of course, they can’t.

Freezing ice cracks. Those New Englanders who live next to ponds can attest to the booms and cracks on clear, cold nights. As the water under the ice freezes, it expands, and cracks the ice above. The tearing race of a crack a few miles long is a memorable sound. This process of cracking and expanding causes the thick ice to rise off the shallows, creating a shelf of ice at the pond edge.
In large bodies of water, where wind and currents also press the ice into motion, normal freeze cracking can open a lead as well.

Regarding the long straight cracks, it suggests a “grain” to the ice much like is exploited in granite and marble quarrying. The three directions of quarrying are known as the 1) rift (easy way- in granites usually subhorizontal fracturing or sheet fracturing) 2) grain or run – commonly vertical direction of relatively easy split often marked by natural joints in the rock and due to partial preferred orientation of mineral crystals with strong crystal cleavage direction oriented in long dimension of the crystal. 3) the “hardway” the direction across the grain at right angles where the stone resists breaking (like across wood grain). The rift in granite is the result of removal of lithostatic compressive strain by erosion of often many kilometres of covering rock. In the case of the antarctic ice shelf, the rift as such isn’t present but the water ice interface at the bottom serves this “quarrying” purpose. In the photos of long bars of ice, these appear to have broken along the “grain” and, because of the “hardway” direction at right angles being especially strong, the ice blocks are exceedingly long. It is clear that no geologist or engineer has studied the texture of the ice and the nature of its crystalization. The antarctic research people appear to lack this part of the discipline. Re the crystal direction, with aging and movement it likely causes recrystallization with longer dimensions of ice crystals at right angles to the compressive forces in the direction of flow of the glacial ice. lifting the the ice by a swell in the sea, progressing shoreward would flex the shelf upward and then bend it downward when it retreats and the ice breaks along the “grain” direction. I think a nice PhD thesis would be to do textural analysis of ice cap ice, smaller glaciers, sea ice etc. to understand the fracturing features. Here is a great little video and pictures granite quarring in Vermont – the rift is the horizontal fractures, the area showing drill hole marks are the grain along which the blocks are broken away from the quarry face using wedges or light explosives. The hardway is either sawn or drill holes and wedges are more closely spaced : http://www.rockofages.com/en/quarry-blocks
Don’t they just look like ice!?

“The reason that the Antarctic Peninsula frequently has disintegrating ice shelves is because this is the area where the warmer South Pacific currents hit the Antarctic Peninsula.”…..from the link on WUWT (17-04-09): The Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapse.

Ice flows as it builds depth. Heads downhill, to the sea if necessary.
The onus to prove otherwise lies with the crack-alarmists, and nowhere else.
Let them claim anything they wish, as they do: They just admitted to spreading. Spreading is due to flow from excessive depth, seeks lower state.
Even hot lava does this, seeks lower angle of repose.
Prove the spreading is not due to increased depth beyond angle of repose.
It’s thier claim. It’s their responsibility to prove.

Interesting answer, thanks Jorge.
Steven Goddard:
“Even if snowfall was increasing in the interior, this discussion is about sea ice. If snow falls on sea water, it melts. Sea ice on the other hand is due to cold temperatures.”

True that, their argument also however, includes the idea that the increased buildup of this snow on the interior leads to increased glacial flow to the ocean, hence more glacial ice around the coastal ice sheets.
I believe that the data generally does show cooling, but it is interesting to hear what people have to say about why there is more ice.

I wonder if Al lies awake at night worrying about the size of his carbon footprint or whether he and Tipper should not have had all their kids ?

I doubt it somehow, the green movement gone mad has a lot to answer for.

“The stakes are higher for his wife, Mimi. He says having a second child could have too high an environmental cost. “We’ve had the discussion of, ‘If we have another biological child, it means we never fly,'” plus doing other things to offset the child’s carbon footprint, said Mimi Ikle-Khalsa. “I’m 40, so my clock is going Boom! Boom! Boom! Sometimes I just roll my eyes and go, ‘Come on, honey, think about who our child could be!'”

It’s not a claim, Robert Bateman. Remember – the debate is over. We are now talking about a religion, and the things they are saying about ice, global sea ice, the Arctic, the Antarctic, etc. are doctrines to be enshrined forever in the holy book of some future IPCC report and/or computer model run and to be chanted in every media report as if they were the Rosary. It’s never been about science. It’s always been about control, and the fastest way to that is through religion. Anyone who has studied history knows that.

Actual physical mechanism: Add sand to the pile, it will surely spread according to it’s angle of repose.
Add ice from increased snowfall in Antarctica, it will surely spread outward from the deepest points according to the angle of repose. It does not need warmer temps to do this. Neither does sand, or any other material.
When it reaches the sea, and it starts shoving on the sea ice, the sea ice must give way to the greater mass, ergo it cracks.
The behavior of the sea ice does not influence the depth of inland ice beyond making room for the irresitable force to vent itself.
Now then, how’s about some real numbers?
Tell us the mass of the sea ice, and the mass of the ice sheet.
Who’s the boss and by what magnitude?

The undoctored photo of the polar bears may at first look the same but the origional had one of the polar bears milling about like it wasn’t asking for help or was scared of being on that piece of ice,

The “doctored” photo shows part of the ice “sculpture” that the “undoctored” photo crops out. One cannot be just a photoshop of the other. Maybe there’s a larger, common source. Maybe the original source had multiple images.

There was much hysteria to the fracture in the Wilkins iceshelf. It would be interesting to track the movement of the affected ice mass over the next few months. My guess… It gets trapped by rapidly freezing sea ice and remains close to it’s original point of fracture.

Steven, it might be interesting to check it periodically if it can be tracked.

I don’t get it… Why then is this precise shelf breaking down, as was predicted more than 30 years ago as a consequence of global warming? Same holds for LarsenB, etc. All the shelves that were supposed to disappear first have done it – Wilkins is the last one standing.

I agree shelf formation and disappearance must follow some cycle. But isn’t the conincidence a bit.. surprising?

Flanagan (14:35:50) – Do you have a source for those predictions and the arguments on which they were based? Do you have any longer historical perspective on those ice sheets size and whether or not they have receded and grown in the past?

Flanagan, This shelf (and others)have broken down and reformed since ice began to form at the pole. How is this all of a sudden a coincidence? Site your 30 year old reference. Do you really the believe the stuff you are typing? Any more crap like this and I will stop reading your posts altogether. Your arguments are getting more and more irrational. I have yet to see you successfully defend any of your postings. Most everyone here has ripped you a new one, yet you still don’t get it. Are you a masochist? I know you are not stupid as you write very well. Why can you not accept that AGW has failed miserably? It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. Do you have the stones?

The BBC had an article about the discovery of massive, slow-motion “ice quakes” trembling twice a day through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It was apparently caused by ice scraping over a ridge. Cannot find the article now.
In addition here is a YouTube clip of a C17 landing on ice in the Antarctic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exR0-NSsM44
Add tidal movement repeatedly flexing the ice and the ice shelves as a structure are likely to develop fatigue fractures. Is this an unreasonable assumption?

You touched on a point that I think is very important but often ignored – the Wilkins Ice Shelf is up to 200 metres thick! When you look at those pictures you have to remember that only about 15% is above water. As you say, it’s clear that the ice shelf is cracking, not melting.

Arn Riewe (13:44:31) :
There was much hysteria to the fracture in the Wilkins iceshelf. It would be interesting to track the movement of the affected ice mass over the next few months. My guess… It gets trapped by rapidly freezing sea ice and remains close to it’s original point of fracture.

It’s much more than a simple fracture, over a few days the ‘pinning point’ of Charcot island was lost and now the ‘pinning point’ for the ice shelf is about 30 miles further S at Latady island. Your guess is not much of a prediction since winter is approaching, however with the exception of the very large bergs the rest of the debris will move away (and melt) quickly in the spring and summer (as at the Larsen B).

The Wilkins Ice Shelf ice appears to be broken by wind. It is not likely the result of melting, as it would be rounded, honeycombed, and floating in water like the Arctic ice picture. Much more likely it was the result of winds pushing the ice around.

As a fan of Tesla, I know that his boundary layer turbine was capable of immense power in a small size. This same boundary layer theory, super sized, would have the wind creating immense forces on the ice. As oscillations like the AMO and PDO change, the wind currents will change and break the ice. In the case of the Arctic, it is flushing it out to the east and into warmer water. Apparently in the case of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, it is cracking it and pushing it inland.

The largest iceberg ever sighted was 335 km (208 mi) long and 97 km (60 mi) wide, (32495 km^2) about the size of Belgium. It was sighted in November 1956 by the crew of a United States Coast Guard icebreaker in the Ross Sea, off Antarctica.

Iceberg B-15 (March 2000), The Ross ice shelf calved off iceberg B-15 which broke up into several pieces in 2000, 2002 and 2003, the largest of which, B-15A, was the world’s largest free floating object at 27 x 122 km (17 x 76 mi) with an area of 3,100 km^2V (1,200 mi², approximately the size of Luxembourg). In November 2003, after the separation from B-15J iceberg, B-15A drifted away from Ross Island on the open waters of the Ross Sea.

Iceberg C-19 (May 2002) C-19 is an iceberg that calved from the Ross Ice Shelf on May 2002 on a fissure scientists had been watching since the 1980s. After that the Ross Ice Shelf returned to the size it was in 1911, when it was mapped by Robert F. Scott’s party.

Note the biggest “observed” on record dates from 53 years ago!
This berg was an order of magnitude larger in surface extent than B15 in March 2000, and it calved off during an acknowledged cooling period.

When viewed in context of the Nov 1956 berg recent events are pretty ho-hum all things considered. Even more important is that the 1956 berg is simply the largest ever observed (prior to satellite data) we have no clue how often these large events occur in a historical sense, given the lack of travel and observation into this area prior to modern times.

RayB (17:42:19) :
The Wilkins Ice Shelf ice appears to be broken by wind. It is not likely the result of melting, as it would be rounded, honeycombed, and floating in water like the Arctic ice picture. Much more likely it was the result of winds pushing the ice around.

There’s more than one way to melt, melting from below thins the ice thus making it more prone to fracture, especially if it detaches from subsurface pinning points.

One can only conclude that the growing sea ice extent in Antartica is seen as a great threat to AGW philosophy by it’s deciples !

First, we have the manipulated temperature anomoly data presented in an attempt to hide the real cooling trend. Now we have pictures of ice shelf cracking to distract the public from the rapidly growing sea ice extent.

As to the root cause of the Wilkins ice shelf crack…? It’s obviously not melting. A more plausible theory is that Al Gore visited there recently and tried walking on the shelf !

“One warning sign that a dangerous warming is beginning in Antarctica, will be a breakup of ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula just south of the January 0C isotherm; the ice shelf in the Prince Gustav Channel, and the Wordie Ice Shelf; the ice shelf in George VI Sound, and the ice shelf in Wilkins Sound.”
Mercer, Nature, 1978, v271 pp.321-325

They’re all gone now… These ones, and not other ones… Why? Coincidences?

There are new ones every year, and there will always be, provided there is a continuos production of ice behind(kind of an automatic ice cube’s machine, as somebody said here). The antarctica peninsula temperatures (being closer to the equator), during summer, are currently above zero at noon (up to 2°C), as the temperatures in the Florida peninsula (in the USA,and, also, being closer to the equator) are by far higher than in the rest of the USA.
Check also the currents of the pacific sea: warm waters go south to “refresh” there, and then go up along the southamerican coasts, already refreshed, as the cold humboldt’s current . Did you get it?

Yes, the media IS addicted to melt. Apparently in the clearly mistaken belief that aside from their handlers’ insistence, this is a path to increased revenue. Unfortunately, the shrieking fear-monger industry is stumbling like a drunken sailor. e.g. Gannett:

With ad revenues plunging and subscribers leaving in droves – you would think these businessmen would consider it might be their content no one’s interested in. Funny how WUWT has soaring hits, and the MSM is tanking faster than glacial calving. Now, experimentally, what if NBC or (!) CNN, ran a daily segment on AGW skepticism? What would the numbers tell us after 120 days?

Steve: maybe you should read my post again and look for the word “today”…

Adolfo: yes, parts of the peninsula are abov 0 cent. What we see is exactly what was predicted by mercer: the 0C isocline, ie the line above which temperatures are equal or superior to zero, is going south from year to year. As a predicted effect of warming.

A Relative Movement Theoryk for ice shelves…..
If the breakaway ice drops DOWN, then it has been undermined by being warmed from below. When the underwater ice melts below, the upward flotation force is reduced. Once weakened, there could be a secondary trigger effect that knocks it loose. The photo would fit this scenario if the breakaway is the narrower piece on the side of the loose ice.
If the breakaway is at the SAME height, then there has been no warming. (“uniform warming” would seem to be pretty complicated) Without the upward force weakening effect mentioned above, the trigger effect would have to be very strong. Or maybe there is some flotation…from the storm swells of a storm that is thousands of miles away.
Continuing on this (downward?) speculative path…the breakaway part could move UP in cold weather, if enough salt water ice has formed on the underside.

Compare the thickness of the ice with that in the Arctic and then wonder why even some first-year ice survives summer–otherwise where would second-year ice come from.

There is no comparison, there are very few large, 200m thick, pinned ice sheets extending over the ocean in the Arctic. Those that there are have been fragmenting and disappearing like the ones in the peninsula.
The thin floating ice is always breaking up, moving around and reforming it’s a totally different phenomenon.

Current Arctic ice islands which are ‘babies’ compared with the Antarctic:

Most recent images from ESA shows the continued fragmentation of the Wilkins, as predicted a few years age the key to the stability of the remaining shelf was the ice ‘bridge’ to Charcot. Once that went earlier this month a large part of the shelf started to break up. Note that the Wilkins is not an advancing ice sheet fed by a glacier with continual calving at its terminus.http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMRAVANJTF_index_0.html